


to see the world coming up for air

by inconocible



Series: as a shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn [4]
Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, But Before-mission: Friends in Very Low Places, Chapter 3, Description of Hunting, Discussion of Death, Discussion of Self-Hatred, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Gen, Post-Mission: Blessed Are the Peacemakers, Spoilers Do Not Interact, The Boys Talk That's It That's The Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 19:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17049080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inconocible/pseuds/inconocible
Summary: Hosea sips his coffee, raises his eyebrows at John, and John isn’t sure who taught the expression to who, but it looks the damn same on Hosea’s face as it does on Arthur’s. You’re a goddamn fool, John Marston, is what the lift in Hosea’s eyebrows say, but his smile is kind and comforting. “Yeah,” John says quietly. “Yeah, we -- we talked.”Hosea rolls his eyes, laughs a little, shakes his head. “Goddamn finally,” he mutters, but the affection in the way he says it blunts the harshness of it.





	to see the world coming up for air

**Author's Note:**

> when i met you, you could look in my eyes  
> and see a love light burning there  
> we used to walk up in the hills at dawn  
> to see the world [coming up for air](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_OXOtW4zW0)

John and Arthur are laying on their stomachs, propped up on their forearms on the edge of a ridge, patiently watching a herd of deer feed in the clearing below. Arthur had dragged John out of his bedroll about an hour ago, while the early morning sky was still pitch-black dark, complaining of boredom and the need to “get this ol’ body movin’ again,” and he had thrust a cup of coffee into John’s hands, all but begging him to get up and go chase some deer.

“I know a great spot, not far, down in this little green space, but we gotta hit it while the sun’s risin’, while it’s still cool out,” Arthur had said, finishing off his own coffee with one hand and loading his quiver with some fresh arrows with the other, and John, who hasn’t really been able to say no to Arthur for about fifteen years now, had shrugged in defeat.

“Ain’t your shoulder still hurtin’?” he’d asked, trying to buy himself some time to wake up, sipping at his coffee even as he’d followed Arthur over to the horses, started tacking up Old Boy, noticing that Mist was already tacked up and ready to go, as though Arthur had known John wouldn’t say no.

“If I don’t man up and start usin’ it more, it won’t never stop hurtin’,” Arthur had countered firmly, swinging himself up into the saddle, and, John had to admit, there was a strange kind of sense in that. It had only been a couple of weeks, now, since Arthur had dragged himself back into camp, half-dead, but he was the most stubborn son of a bitch that John had ever known (save, perhaps, for Dutch), and so it hadn’t surprised him much that Arthur was already taking this attitude toward his convalescence.

So, a slow ride later, here they are, peering over the ridge, laying long and prone on their bellies, leaning their weight on their forearms in the dewy grass, the sun barely starting to rise behind them, hazy and gray, watching the deer. “Patience,” Arthur had said, when they’d first crawled into position, looking westward over the sight of his bow, down at the deer.

“What for?” John had said. “They’re right there.”

Arthur had sighed. “The minute we shoot, they’ll scatter,” he’d said, slow, as though John was some kind of idiot. Maybe he was.

A good ten minutes have passed, since, the sun slowly rising, the birds singing, and John can’t quite decide whether the silence taking up the six inches between them is a comfortable one or not.

Arthur lets out a soft sigh. “So, uh,” he starts in a hushed tone, startling John, breaking the quiet of the morning. “When I was hangin’ by my ankles, in, uh, Colm’s cellar, I did some thinkin’.”

“What thinkin’?” John asks, a bit distracted, still watching the deer through the scope of his rifle.

“You ‘member what I told you, when you was layin’ in that sorry state, tryin’ not to die, after Blackwater?” Arthur lays his bow down in the grass beside him, though the deer are still just below them, and John still can’t figure why Arthur’s hesitating so much on shooting one. He looks at John, turns his full attention to him. “Or was you too busy not dyin’,” he adds.

John lays his rifle down, too, giving the deer up as maybe nothing more than pretense now for this -- whatever Arthur is meaning for this trip to be. He frowns and narrows his eyes at Arthur, then closes them, retreating into his memory.

His memories of those days after the mountain and before Horseshoe Overlook are hazy, at best; gone, at worst. He remembers the vague relief of _safety_ , knowing that Dutch and Hosea and Arthur and the rest of the gang were close by, knowing that he was indoors. He remembers Hosea, sitting up with him long hours at night, reading to him, as though nothing was wrong, as though John was just a kid again and couldn’t fall asleep. He remembers Dutch’s big, warm hands on his hair, his familiar, concerned voice warming away the cold ache that persisted in his chest. He remembers the sharp, bright rays of Abigail’s anger, stabbing and shining through the fog.

Arthur is what John remembers the most from those days, though: Arthur, smelling like tobacco and horse and sweat and survival. Arthur, his face looking so sad, so severe, so _old_ , all lit up in shadowy candlelight. Arthur, the callouses and cuts on his dry, over-worked hands, the strength and warmth that persisted in them, despite all that the winter had taken from them, as he’d held John’s hands in his. Arthur, an emotion in his voice John couldn’t possibly begin to name, whispering, over and over, like a prayer, “Don’t you die, you stupid son-uva-bitch. I’m sorry, you idiot bastard, Christ, I’m sorry.”

John opens his eyes, looks up, and finds Arthur waiting for his answer, still patiently leaning on his forearms against the ridge, watching him with a singular attention. “I ‘member you callin’ me an idiot bastard,” he says, and Arthur scowls at him. “An’ a stupid son of a bitch,” John adds.

“Yeah, ain’t that the truth,” Arthur sighs. He shakes his head. “You ain’t wrong, but I’m recallin’ something else.”

John sighs. “ ‘Member you askin’ me not to die,” he mumbles, nearly embarrassed to say it, somehow, feeling all of eleven years old again under Arthur’s focused scrutiny.

“Mm hm,” Arthur hums. His scowl has relaxed some, that patience coming back into his expression. “Anythin’ else?”

John feel heat in his cheeks that has nothing to do with the sun rising, bringing with it the promise of yet again another muggy day. “You said you were --” he huffs out a sigh, looks away toward the deer, afraid, suddenly, to have this conversation, overdue by a couple of stilted, uncomfortable years between them -- “sorry.”

“Mm,” Arthur hums again, thoughtful, in the back of his throat. “And that, I am, Marston. That I am.”

John doesn’t know what to say.

“John,” Arthur says, and just like John couldn’t say no earlier this morning, he can’t deny Arthur now. He draws his breath and his courage in through his nose, looks up at Arthur’s weather-beaten face, at the lines of age, put there through the past unkind decade, that stand out in relief in the strengthening sunlight. Arthur waits until John’s met his eyes before he says, slow, and full of that nameless feeling, “I’m sorry.”

“But --” John starts, and he doesn’t even know _where_ to start, so he retreats back to the comforting weight of his anger. “You mean, about when I -- left?”

“Mm hm,” Arthur hums again. “And when you came back.”

“Oh, when I came back?” John says around an incredulous laugh. “Arthur, when I came back, you -- you weren’t sorry about nothin’, you broke my fucking nose!”

“And now, I’m sayin’, I’m sorry I did,” Arthur says, so calm and even about all of this that John feels, suddenly, like he has half a mind to break Arthur’s damn nose, see how sorry he feels then.

“And you haven’t -- since then, you’ve barely --” John huffs. “You hate me,” he says.

“No,” Arthur says quickly, surprise in the way his eyebrows raise, in the ways his eyes widen. “God, no, I don’t hate you, John.”

“Then why --”

“When you left,” Arthur says. “Ain’t just Abigail, who you hurt, doin’ that. Leavin’ like you did, not so much as a how-d’you-do, then comin’ back, like ain’t nothin’ happened, like you never thought we might’ve worried you was dead. Just comin’ back like it weren’t nothin’, like -- like Dutch’s prodigal youngest boy.” He huffs out a harsh breath through his nose.

“That was two years ago,” John says, slow, not able to think of what to say, too stuck between the rock of his anger and the hard place of Arthur apologizing, of Arthur admitting that he, of all people, had been, of all things, _hurt_. “I mean --”

“I know,” Arthur says. “And I been -- we _both_ been -- carrying it around, these couple years you been back. Don’t act like we ain’t. It weren’t just your nose, what got broken.” He sighs again, looks back down at the deer, lays his hand over his bow, his voice rolling like a slow and undeniable stream over John, soaking right down through to John’s heart. “I just -- listen, Marston. There I was, alright, hangin’ by my ankles in O’Driscoll’s cellar, and I thought -- shit, I don’t know, I thought, what would I regret the most, leavin’ unsaid, if I’d’a died, right there.” He looks back over at John. “I was scared as shit, when we got your stupid ass down off that mountain, thinkin’ you were fixin’ to die, and we’d never -- But then you didn’t, and -- I was too --” He sighs again, shakes his head. “All I’m sayin’ is, I should’a said something a long time ago, and I didn’t.”

Arthur swallows heavily. “And I’m sorry, John,” he finishes, and he picks his bow up, sights the deer in again.

“Just like that?” John asks. “You want me to just -- just like that?”

“Nah,” Arthur says, slow, his concentration turned back, at least partially now, to the deer. “I know you ain’t gonna just --” Arthur lets out a slow breath through his mouth, adjusts his bow ever so slightly. “I figure maybe you still hate me, too,” he says. “And that’s -- I understand, if you do. But I also figure, if I never said anything, you wouldn’t, neither.”

“Arthur,” John says.

“Shh,” Arthur breathes. “Sun’s just right, now.” He cuts his eyes over at John, looks pointedly down at John’s rifle. “Come on, sun’s just right,” he says again, raising his eyebrows a touch, that way he always does when he thinks John’s being an idiot.

John huffs out a sigh, rolls his eyes, but he still picks his rifle back up, looks back down the scope at the deer. Arthur’s right, the light _is_ just right, and John can barely catch Arthur breathing out, “Now,” before the arrow flies, straight and true, felling one of the biggest does in the herd. John aims and takes down two of the does, and Arthur takes down an additional one, as well, before the herd scatters away.

“Good,” Arthur pronounces, and he’s pushing himself up to standing, groaning as he does. “Ah, Christ,” he grits out, rolling his bad shoulder around.

“That shoulder hurtin’ you, old man?” John asks.

“Shut up,” Arthur says, but there’s no bite to it at all. He walks back over to the horses, pats Mist on her neck with his good hand, still rolling his bad shoulder around in its socket, and John has to roll his eyes at the predictable, sweet way he’s murmuring, “Hey, girl, come on and let’s get those deer.” He stows his bow on the saddle, mounts, and John stows his rifle in Old Boy’s saddle and mounts up, too, following Arthur as they start to pick their way down to their kills.

“I don’t hate you, Arthur,” John finally says, when they’re about halfway down the ridge.

“No?” Arthur asks, looking at him sidelong.

John feels more sure of saying _no_ to Arthur right now than he ever has in his whole life. “No,” he says, as firm as he can. “I don’t.”

“Okay,” Arthur says. They’ve reached the fallen deer, now, and Arthur pulls Mist up to a stop, swings off of her, gets to work with field dressing the deer enough to get them back to camp.

They work quietly and efficiently, the sun damn near hot overhead, now, despite how early it still is. The fucking weather down here, John thinks.

Two deer on the back of each of their horses, they turn for home, taking the trip at a slow, easy trot, not a hurry in the world.

“Why not?” Arthur asks, at length.

“Why not what?” John says. Arthur’s looking at him with that face again, like John’s being an idiot, and John thinks that the number of times he’s been on the receiving end of that look in the past fifteen years might just be more than the number of stars that there are in the sky. “Oh, no, how ‘bout you go first, you seem in a sharin’ mood,” he sasses.“How ‘bout, why don’t _you_ hate _me_ , Morgan?”

Arthur sighs. “You’re gonna be like that, huh,” he mutters, barely audible to John over the sound of Mist and Old Boy’s hooves on the path. “I don’t hate you cause -- cause you’re my brother,” he says. “And I -- yeah, I hated it, when you left. And yeah, I was fuckin’ angry, when you came back. I hated how -- how I _felt_. But I --” He sighs, shakes his head. “I could never hate _you_.”

“Well,” John says, surprised at the depth to which Arthur is volunteering of himself this morning, “there’s your answer, brother. I mean, my answer, too.”

“Oh, come on, that ain’t fair,” Arthur says, but he’s got a teasing tone to him. “You’re takin’ an easy out.”

John shakes his head. “You raised me,” John says, “same as Dutch ‘n Hosea. Maybe even better’n they did, from time to time. I -- I feel the same way, ‘bout you. I do.”

Arthur lets another beat pass, then he asks, “Why’d you leave?”

John sighs. “I don’t know,” he says, and he hates that he doesn’t have a better answer. “Too scared, I guess, of everything, all that mess, with Abigail, and Jack. Hatin’ myself too much, I just --” He shakes his head. “I had to get some _space_.”

“That sounds like horse shit,” Arthur says.

“It’s all I got,” John says.

Arthur _harrumphs_ in the back of his throat, frowns over at John. “Can we agree,” he says, “to try to be less hateful? To -- to one another, sure, but -- maybe, also, to ourselves? I know, it’s hard, but, shit, what do we got, if we ain’t even got trust in our own selves.”

“I don’t know,” John says again. He wants to tell Arthur no, that hating himself is half of what’s kept him alive up to this point; that hating himself is the awful, cold comfort he keeps running back to, time after time; that hating himself is one of the most constant things he’s ever had in life, outside of maybe Arthur himself. But he can’t say no to Arthur, he can’t. “I guess,” he says.

“Okay,” Arthur says.

“I been askin’ myself that a lot, recently,” John offers.

“What,” Arthur says.

“How to keep trustin’ myself,” John says. “Or, or trustin’ Dutch. Or Hosea. Or you.” He shakes his head. “It’s so complicated,” he says. “I thought, leavin’, I’d find answers, but I think it just made me that much more confused, once I got back.”

“Hm,” Arthur hums thoughtfully. “You know I’ll always trust Dutch ‘n Hosea. But -- it ain’t good to feel like you can’t trust your own self.”

“Yeah,” John sighs.

“Well, just don’t get too deep in your head, Marston,” Arthur says, suddenly sounding like he’s ending the conversation, and John realizes they’re already back at camp, Lenny calling out a greeting from the watch post.

John pulls Old Boy to a hard halt just outside the camp’s perimeter, and Arthur pulls Mist up, too, beside him. “What?” Arthur asks quietly.

“Why’d you come for me?” John asks, one more question, one more answer he needs, long as they’re doin’ all this sharing. Who knows when this mood’ll strike Arthur again. “On the mountain. Why --”

“Because Hosea and Abigail asked me to,” Arthur says. “Mostly Hosea. And because I --” He sighs wearily, scrubs a hand over his face, and John remembers how Arthur had sighed exactly the same way, when he’d hopped down into the snow like a mountain goat, plucked John out of his certain death, when he’d pronounced, “You don’t look so good.”

“You know,” Arthur’s saying, “it had only been a couple’a days, I weren’t so sure you needed savin’ _just_ yet, but I knew that Hosea, and Dutch, and Abigail, would’ve been damn impossible to live with, if we’d’a lost you for good. And, and I just had this strange --” he shakes his head -- “ _feeling_ , Marston. I wasn’t sure I’d’ve been able to live with my own self if --” He shrugs, urges Mist on into the camp at a slow walk, Old Boy following her without John even communicating to him at all. The heaviness of the moment breaks a little. “I just had to go scoop my kid brother’s sorry ass out of the goddamn snow, you know?” Arthur says. “I mean, he might be a pain-in-my-ass-sum’bitch, but at the end of the day, I, uh.” He clears his throat, glances back at John. “I love that damn idiot.”

John huffs. “Sure,” he says, rolling his eyes at Arthur’s back.

They’re at the hitching post now, and Arthur swings off of Mist, rounds her, comes up to Old Boy, lays one hand on Old Boy’s neck and one on John’s knee. “I mean it, John,” he says.

John doesn’t know what to do with all of Arthur’s unguarded sincerity, so he scowls down at Arthur, jostles his hand off of his knee, swings off of Old Boy. “Alright, Morgan,” he says, resting a hand briefly on Arthur's good shoulder, and Arthur’s shaking his head at him as he pulls away and turns back to Mist, something like amusement, like sweetness, tugging at his face as he starts hitching her up.

John’s hitching Old Boy up next to Mist and thinking about unloading the deer when Dutch’s voice booms out through the usual morning sounds of the camp. “Well, if it ain’t our boys,” Dutch says. He’s walking over to them, eyeing up their deer, Hosea at his side, still sipping from his coffee mug.

“Mornin’, Dutch, Hosea,” Arthur greets them both.

“Mornin’,” John echos.

“You’ve had an early start,” Dutch concludes. He’s eyeing Arthur, now, clapping him far more gently than usual on his bad shoulder. “You ain’t pushin’ yourself too hard, are you, son?”

Arthur glances at John, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully, and John wonders what he’s thinking. “Nah,” Arthur says, all the seriousness he'd shown to John gone as he looks back at Dutch, straight-faced, even-keeled. “Nice, easy ride. Easy huntin’. Perfect for killin’ my boredom, feedin’ the camp a little.”

“Good, good,” Dutch is saying, smiling easily, laughing affectionately, and then he’s off, calling back over his shoulder to Arthur and John to come get some coffee after they get done with those horses, but Hosea hangs back, follows John around to the other side of Old Boy.

He leans right up in to John’s space. “You boys ain’t gone out together much, these past couple years,” Hosea observes, so quiet that Arthur, busy with Mist’s saddle, doesn’t seem to hear. “Well, ‘less we made you.”

“Yeah,” John says, fumbling with Old Boy’s saddle, hoping for Hosea to get out of his business. But when did _that_ particular wish ever come true, he asks himself, and right now is no exception.

“Everything alright?” Hosea asks.

“I --” John starts, and he glances over at Arthur, currently absorbed in feeding Mist an apple, brushing her down. Hosea sips his coffee, raises his eyebrows at John, and John isn’t sure who taught the expression to who, but it looks the damn same on Hosea’s face as it does on Arthur’s.  _You’re a goddamn fool, John Marston_ , is what the lift in Hosea’s eyebrows say, but his smile is kind and comforting. “Yeah,” John says quietly. “Yeah, we -- we talked.”

Hosea rolls his eyes, laughs a little, shakes his head. “Goddamn finally,” he mutters, but the affection in the way he says it blunts the harshness of it. “Good,” he says. “That’s good.”

“Yeah,” John agrees.

“What brought that on?” Hosea asks.

John shrugs. “Arthur --” He shakes his head. “After he, you know. After.” He shrugs more, feeling all of eleven years old again for the second time this morning, unable to express himself fully under Hosea’s careful attention. Anyway, what is he supposed to say? Ain’t like Hosea weren’t sitting there, trying to keep Arthur from dying, couple weeks ago. Hosea has to know what John means. “He wanted to -- to say a few things,” John offers.

“Mm,” Hosea hums thoughtfully. “I understand, son. You all just keep workin’ at it,” he says, clapping John on the shoulder as he turns to head back to his place at Dutch’s side, holding amiable court over breakfast. “You’ll get there.”

“Yeah,” John agrees to Hosea’s retreating back.

**Author's Note:**

> i can't get over this fam, woW, let me die  
> i originally meant to write a post-mission for battle of shady belle, but i had to get these two here first, i guess. so, you know, stay tuned for the fic that i actually was meaning to write when i accidentally this instead.  
> i've only played to the end of chapter 3 at the time of writing this so, Spoilers, Do Not Interact. i mean i know some of the major ones already but i am just... not... readY  
> [tumblr](https://inconocible.tumblr.com/)


End file.
